


A'a I Ka Hula

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Time, Hidden Depths, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny discovers Steve hulas, which eats at him for a while and then ultimately leads to something he really should have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A'a I Ka Hula

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/gifts).



> Hope you like it, Taz, and I hope I did Steve hula dancing justice for you.
> 
> Title from the phrase _A'a i ka hula, waiho i ka maka'u i ka hale_ , which means: Dare to dance, leave your shame at home.

When Danny strolled into Steve’s house like he had a thousand times before, he had no reason to believe this time would be any different. As he made his way to the kitchen to deposit his offering of beer into the fridge, he muttered under his breath about how for a highly trained Navy SEAL, his partner was shit at picking security alarm passkeys. They were always easy to decode. He knew one thing, besides the code to disarm it, and that was if the alarm was on it meant Steve was indisposed somehow – out for a jog, in the can, tinkering with that useless heap of junk in the garage. Eventually, he’d find Steve or Steve would find him, they’d exchange customary barbs, then settle in for a six pack and a comfortable night would pass. 

It was a thing they did. 

In no way did Danny allow himself to dwell on how pathetic it was that he’d call hanging out with his work partner (he also refused to say boss) during the off hours a life. If anything, it was two social misfits acting as crutches for each other, but that sounded even worse and he resented lumping himself anywhere near the same category as Steve. For him, he reasoned, it was that he was still gunshy after a messy divorce; that was why he had no life. Steve had no such excuse. Well, except pretty much his whole existence had been a shitstorm, as far as Danny had been able to determine so far. He frowned, unhappy himself at the idea of Steve’s past unhappiness.

Danny slid a carton of almond milk aside to make room for the much more palatable beer, snagged a bottle and absently started toward the lanai. He’d just twisted off the bottle cap and flicked it into the sink where it clinked loudly, when he noticed movement out back, near the beach. He furrowed his eyebrows and lifted the beer to his lips, leaned closer to the window to see if he could make out more than indistinct shadows. It could be a Steve, a neighbor doing a quick walk through Steve’s property, or maybe a prowler. After a second, it all came into focus, and he blinked. He set the bottle on the counter, then blinked again. There _was_ someone there, but it was none of the above mentioned. Or, he reconsidered, it was but not in any way he could have anticipated. He squinted.

Occupying Steve’s back yard, down by the edge of the lawn, were what looked to be about half a dozen men. They moved in synchronization, with rhythmic and also bizarrely aggressive motions. He only then caught the faint beat of music. He scrunched his eyebrows together, confused. He wouldn’t call it line dancing, per se, but he was too stunned to know what else to call it immediately. The men were in varying shapes and sizes, and also in various states of dress, all of them in comfortable, loose-fitting things. Danny caught a naked back he’d know anywhere, having worked with the exhibitionist day in and day out for a couple of months now. The tattoos on the biceps helped, too, of course. The group turned as one, making their profiles visible. The look of sheer concentration on Steve’s face was almost as captivating as … whatever it was Danny was watching. The sudden eruption of the group’s shouting jolted a memory.

Hula.

A few weeks after he’d landed on this rock, Gracie had begged him to take her to a cheesy luau show for tourists. He couldn’t say no to any of her entreaties, not when he’d spent nearly a month without her, though the last thing he wanted to do at the time was partake in anything Hawaiian (a fact that still held true). It had been a riot of noise and color. He hadn’t been in the right mindset to pay attention to any of it. Not even his sweet girl’s enthusiasm had made him feign interest, until the dancers. First the women, with their fluid motion and hypnotic hip swivels. Then came the men, who were much more forceful in their movements and just as mesmerizing.

He’d always been a bit of an equal opportunity ogler, though he was more subtle when it came to men. It wasn’t shame or pride, but the fact he’d spent a lifetime keeping quiet out of habit and, after all, Danny had joined a profession where it still wasn’t easy to be open. Any spark he ever felt, any pleasing shape he noticed, he had never acted on without sufficient intel it wouldn’t get him beaten half to death or drummed out. Mostly, it had been a moot point, because Rachel. 

Finding himself on Five-0 and unattached, he’d noticed his partner’s attractiveness from day one, but he’d managed to disregard it by the sheer fact the man was infuriating. All of Steve’s … quirks didn’t really stop Danny from admiring a nice set of, uh, biceps, but the physical assessment was as deep as it ever went. Ditto Chin. And Kono. It wasn’t his fault one of the requirements for being on an elite task force was to be gorgeous, possibly excluding himself. Of course he noticed these things.

He saw one of the men fall out of step, stumbling right into Steve. With all of the stomping and gesticulating going on out there, Danny was sure it took a lot of practice before they got good enough to avoid collisions. That was what this was, a practice session. For hula. With Steve. He watched his partner jitter a few steps, half expected him to pull his angry hamster face out and retaliate against the guy who’d run into him. Given what he knew about Steve thus far in their relationship – strong arming him onto the team, grenades instead of sane interrogation techniques, etc. ad nauseum – that was a logical conclusion to draw. Steve, though, simply laughed and nudged the guy back into his spot. There commenced arm-slugging, an exchange of grins and overall … camaraderie, as the group reorganized to start again. It unsettled him for some reason and he suddenly felt as if he were witnessing something meant to be private. 

Danny backed away from the window, kept backing until he was out of the kitchen. Of all the things he’d seen tonight, it was the look of absolute ease on Steve’s face that would stick with him for a while. He’d seen glimpses of something soft and earnest under Steve’s all-business, usually-nuts SEAL exterior, but nothing anywhere close to the loose, happy guy he’d just witnessed. Steve had a certain amount of tension in his shoulders at all times, which Danny attributed as remnants of a regimented, military life and the tragedy that had preceded it. It was part of what made working with the guy such a challenge, but one Danny was too contrary to relent on. Steve may have conscripted him onto Five-0, but now that he was there, Danny was there to stay.

He had to admit that this new facet to his partner only made him more positive he needed to stick around for whatever craziness his association with Steve tossed his way. Curious by nature and vocation, Danny wanted to know what other more human endeavors Steve had up his sleeve. Once he figured this one out, anyway. He glanced back at the house before he slid into his car, shaking his head slightly. 

Hula. Who would’ve guessed?

*~*~*~*

Obsessed wasn’t a word he used lightly. He had been touched by many cases in which the victim had been at the mercy of someone else’s obsession and it was never pretty. But try as he might, Danny couldn’t get the image of Steve dancing with a bunch of men like it was the most natural part of himself out of his head. He’d intended on figuring it all out, it was top on his list of things to do besides the job, but he was stuck in a loop, thinking about the way Steve’s muscles flexed as he moved. He was a professional, damn it. He didn’t know why this one thing was eating at him every spare moment.

Well, no, he had some idea. If, and this was a big if, he felt like being honest, he might admit to being a tad hurt Steve hadn’t mentioned the whole hula thing to him. They spent a lot of time together. He thought they’d gotten pretty close, as far as things went. Mostly, too, he supposed he was embarrassed to have not realized this huge thing about his own partner. He was the one always pushing Steve to look beyond the obvious, coaching his military partner to think like a civilian cop and he’d gone and judged Steve by his crazy exterior.

The hula on its own would have been enough to blow his mind, but he found himself wanting to know what it was about it that made Steve so open and relaxed. And the more he thought about that, the more confounded he was about missing this softer side of Steve in the first place. Hence the loop. He’d created his own mental Mobius strip. 

Then again, to be fair, there were probably about a million personal things Steve didn’t know about him. Danny had zero doubt that Steve had used all means at his disposal to dig through his work history and, hell, probably even his education and family life. He felt a small swell of warmth in the pit of his stomach, remembering how Steve had barely known him but had gifted him with an expensive hotel weekend package, and then had gone to bat for him with Rachel over custody. Those were some pretty huge clues he’d overlooked. He gave Steve his fortieth sidelong glance of the day.

“What?” Steve said, somewhat sharply. Almost defensive.

“What, what?” Danny said, jerking his gaze back forward, through the windshield. Rookie move, dead giveaway. “Huh?”

“Don’t what, what, huh me. You’ve been staring at me all day.”

Danny knew subtlety wasn’t a strength of his, he’d just banked on Steve’s obliviousness being a bigger weakness. He wasn’t ready to bring his discovery into the light quite yet, too busy still trying to wrap his brain around it. He blinked at Steve stupidly.

“What do you mean?” Danny asked.

The hula show he’d seen, with Grace, the men had worn these things that looked like colored diapers. He’d thought the whole thing had been fairly ridiculous, diapers plus wreaths of green around their ankles, wrists, necks and heads. That had all been a blessing in disguise, just over the edge enough to make it easy to ignore the base attraction he’d felt for several of the more fit of the bunch. Those feelings and reactions he did not want to experience with his darling eight-year-old sitting next to him, and every little deterrent helped. Like he’d said, he was no stranger to admiring a nicely-shaped individual, no matter the gender. Danny just exercised discretion for _both_ instead of just one around Grace, who was too young for him to have to deal with the whole girl/boy, girl/girl, boy/boy, whatever thing.

“Don’t play dumb. Something’s going on.” Steve glanced at him, and again he seemed tense. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, partner.”

Right now, the picture of Steve wearing one of those hula diaper get-ups planted itself into his brain. The problem was, it somehow wasn’t a totally ludicrous, laugh-inducing image at all, and his interest had gone from wanting to understand his partner’s depths to wanting to see him in full hula costume.

So much for his attraction to Steve being curbed.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Danny said. “There’s nothing in my head.”

Steve perked up at that and gave him a smile fueled by roughly one thousand watts of glee. 

Then again, Danny thought, there was that curb. He scowled even though he’d walked right into that one. He held up his left hand, pointer finger raised, to allay the smartass remark that was undoubtedly at the tip of Steve’s tongue. Still, smartass Steve was better than sullen, tense Steve.

“Don’t. Do not even say it, Steven.”

“Say what, Daniel?” 

There was no way that strange feeling low in his belly he got when Steve used his full name meant anything significant. He’d simply eaten one too many doughnuts for breakfast. The coffee had been too strong and was making his stomach odd. It was one of those, because there were supposed to be curbs, damn it, there had always been curbable things. Steve trying to rile him up _was_ a curbable thing, except when it was accompanied by that lazy grin of his. 

“You know what. I’m not giving you the satisfaction of saying it myself.”

“I know I can’t be the first one to ever tell you that you’re no fun at all,” Steve said, with that smile negating the statement quite readily. “But don’t worry, I know your head is full of positively scintillating things just like it always is. I can use my imagination.”

Steve had no idea. None whatsoever, and it had to stay that way as far as Danny was concerned. Never in a million years had he thought hula would be what made his resolve crumble like feta. Even now, he had no clue why seeing Steve engaging in dance didn’t ping him as ridiculous. He wished it did and he could stop thinking about it.

“What I have in my brain at this particular moment is truly none of your concern.” Steve dancing, shirtless and lean. “For once, you just stay out of my head.”

He might have sounded a bit more snappish than he’d intended. Danny watched a muscle in Steve’s jaw tick a few times. He wanted to take his tone back or at least soothe some of the sting out of it, but he didn’t know how without sounding stupid. After all, he wasn’t even sure how to read Steve, so how could he say for sure he’d upset the guy? It wasn’t like he’d ever known Steve’s feathers to be ruffled by anything other than a toolbox full of mysterious things, or his sister being kidnapped. It was taken out of his hands.

“Sure, no problem.” Steve’s tone was easy enough, but somehow not. His smile seemed tighter. “You win, I will stay far out of your head.”

Heaven help him, despite awkward turn this conversation had taken all he could see was Steve wearing next to nothing, dancing in a way that highlighted muscle tone that took effort and dedication to accomplish.

“Good,” Danny said, tasting sand at the back of his throat for his blatant hypocrisy. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t the same. Danny just wanted to understand Steve; Steve wanted to rile him. “I appreciate that.”

Danny kept his attention focused intently out of his window, but he sensed Steve glancing at him several times for the remainder of the drive.

*~*~*~*

“Williams, you are a creepy, creepy man,” Danny muttered quietly in the dark room as he watched the intricate moves happening on the lawn. “You have bigger issues than McGarrett.”

It was actually pretty embarrassing how quickly he’d spiraled into this state. The plan he’d made to keep it all business with Steve had been obliterated, his fascination going from a solid need for understanding the mystery of Steve’s inner workings to one of sheer, animal lust before he’d realized it was happening. There was no explanation that he could stomach for doing what he was doing now, other than that he was sick in the head.

He knew there was something seriously wrong with him, deep down, which had him lurking in the shadows like some peeping tom. Not like. There was no other word for it, Danny _was_ peeping, and he couldn’t call it an accident this time. He’d done some math, basic statistics which determined that chances were decent Steve’s hula practice might happen at the same time every week, if they weren’t on an active case. Danny had also recognized some of the cars lining the street, the ones he’d seen last week but had only realized belonged to Steve’s guests as he was fleeing the scene. If he’d been wrong about tonight, he could have brushed it off as him coming over as a peace offering and hung out with Steve like they usually did. But he hadn’t been wrong. He’d seen the cars going in, he’d gone immediately to the kitchen window and now he was standing here gawking under some guise he couldn’t even find a name for. 

The beachside of the house and surrounding landscaping was all lit by electric torches. There were more men tonight, he noticed, counting eleven plus Steve. He didn’t even bother trying to split his attention between all of them, though he did notice in his periphery that with the added members of the troupe they seemed to be having some difficulty getting into sync. His eyes were primarily on Steve, who was wearing a loose tank and shorts and looked perfectly in place despite being one of only two non-Hawaiian men in the group. Like all of them, his feet were bare as he stomped in the grass and even they were cute, in a strange, footie kind of way. 

He said it before, he’d say it again – he was screwed beyond measure. Noticing Steve’s feet, for fuck’s sake, that was how far down he’d gone. Literally, he couldn’t get lower. Danny stared at Steve’s toes, then his eyes inevitably trailed up strong calves and thighs, to hips that didn’t exactly swivel like a female hula dancer’s, but there was the promise of it in movements that were more graceful than he’d have ever expected. But it wasn’t like he’d expected any of this. He scrunched his eyes shut and exhaled loudly. He had to get his brain focused on the truly important things. Not Steve’s hips.

Danny wondered exactly how Steve dancing had come about. His partner had been young when he’d been shipped to the mainland, but these guys … even though they were still clearly roughing through early choreography, there was a very tight-knit feel to their interactions even from an eye untrained in the art of dance. This wasn’t a group who’d only met, at least most of them. Some looked to be all of five minutes older than Grace. His eyes lingered on the wiry kid next to an older guy who was three times his width. He knew at the core this group and their bond had formed years ago, not the months since Steve had returned. 

No, Steve’s movements too spoke of familiarity, muscle memory. Danny wanted to know when Steve had joined them, and if anyone in his life had known. Had his parents supported him, or was it his own secret, one Danny was now intruding on? He knew the only actual way he was going to get answers to his questions was if he asked them of Steve, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it yet. If Steve intended this to be private, then Danny had no right. None at all.

“Then what are you doing here,” Danny asked himself, “besides being some voyeuristic weirdo?” 

He opened his eyes and continued to watch the dance. The men had long since stopped with all of the shouting and were now intent on telling the story through their movements. Gracie had explained it all to him after their night at the luau, having decided to research all things hula afterward. Sometimes he thought the internet was going to be the downfall of civilization (he’d lectured her about encyclopedias and she’d stared at him like he was an alien), but then again sometimes the internet provided useful information. Without it, he’d think the dance was nice, but goofy. Hell, he might have chosen to laugh this meaningful thing of Steve’s off. He knew, though, the importance of it in the Hawaiian culture, and as Steve was an active participant, it was also key to him. Danny was starting to think maybe the why of it all was less vital for him to know than just knowing this part of Steve existed.

And second to that (but really first), what Steve would look like in a loincloth less stupid-looking than the diaper things, as Danny may or may not have seen when he’d compulsively viewed hula competition videos on YouTube. God, he was one messed-up puppy.

As one, the men bobbed and weaved, crouched in a way that almost seemed like genuflection but was repeated several times to signify forward movement. Then they swung their arms as if they were paddling. Danny wasn’t privy to the whole story, but parts of it made sense to him. He wanted to make sense of Steve, wanted it to be about more than attraction on a physical level. It _was_ , even if he got hung up on certain things. The definition of Steve’s biceps in the dim light created shadows that killed most of Danny’s upper brain function. 

He had noticed Steve’s body before tonight – it was impossible not to, what with how the guy seemed to find excuses to remove his shirt – and had already admitted he had definitely admired it, but there was something different in an atmosphere aided by low torchlight and the three-quarter moon. That was his excuse of the moment, anyway, the thing he needed to tell himself for why he stayed rooted in place when he knew he should have never come in the first place. The only way to describe it even close to accurately was to say Steve dancing in the muted light was hypnotizing.

It was as if Steve had laid a whammy on him and didn’t even know it. 

No good could come from him sticking around any longer, skulking around like the degenerates they busted every day. Danny didn’t want to get caught, which was further evidence of his guilt. He startled when the group all started clapping their hands together loudly, in a beat like a drum. He didn’t know if it signified the end of the dance, but he left quickly and as he did, vowed to be a better person and not return for next week’s practice.

*~*~*~*

“Oh, shit, that’s hot!”

Danny watched with amusement as Steve did what he would have called a little dance, before he knew that his partner could move like he’d seen him move lately. He grinned as Steve flapped his shirt away from his torso and did a hop-step-scoot with more dramatic flair than Danny thought was necessary. He didn’t have the chance to make comment on it. Between his mouth being shut and then open, Steve had yanked the coffee-stained wet shirt off and tossed it at the small couch in his office. He considered it the better part of valor that he didn’t out-and-out double-take at the sudden disrobing, and it took him a while to remember that his mouth was gaping open. His throat felt too tight to speak anyway, so he clamped his mouth shut so hard he was sure his teeth rattled and watched mutely as Steve pulled a white T-shirt out of his desk. 

Jesus, Steve was toned. Danny wanted to run his tongue along all of that bare skin. He would be willing to bet Steve’s skin was soft over those hard muscles, the lines and planes of which made him itch. He’d thought he’d built up immunity to Steve these past few months. Hah. Apparently the whole hula thing was a major contraindication for immunity. 

“It got my pants too,” Steve murmured, patting at his crotch with gusto.

Still struck dumb, Danny stood rooted to the spot as Steve, shirtless yet, bent at the waist and lifted one foot up, then the other, to untie his ridiculous boots. It was when Steve stood straight again and his deft fingers began unbuttoning his cargo pants that Danny realized there was a wet spot on them, right where he couldn’t look and maintain anything like sanity, not with Steve starting to shimmy like that.

“I’ll just,” Danny said with a wave toward the door, “yeah, I’m gonna give you some, uh, privacy.”

Danny was grateful for the fact Steve was probably too busy undressing to realize the haste with which he vacated the office. He made it to his own, contemplated shutting the blinds to block out the temptation and ended up not. He had enough working brain cells left to know that would only draw more attention, Steve’s right now and then Chin and Kono’s would know something was up if they saw he’d sequestered himself when they got back. Instead, he sat and tried hard not to notice what seemed like a prolonged peepshow to him. Jesus, Steve could whip his clothes off in two seconds, why would it take him so long to put new ones on? He surreptitiously watched Steve wave his cargos about, first on the right in a fluid dance-like motion again, then on the left. It was definitely a good thing the others weren’t around, though Danny had to wonder if Steve would have stripped to his underwear if…

Wait. 

Now that he was coming back online a little (he swore that shirt removal in the field, post-hula revelation, made him feel like he’d experienced a blackout even when he knew precisely where he was at all times), dots started forming into an outline, ready to be connected. Eyes narrowed, Danny glanced at Steve again and the guy was _just_ pulling the T-shirt over his head, the stretch to do so exposing a few new lines of muscle to appreciate. He thought back over the past few days, and it didn’t take long for him to draw between those figurative dots. 

The pattern had changed. Steve usually took off his clothes with impunity, didn’t matter where, didn’t matter when and didn’t matter how. If the word utilitarian could be used to describe how someone took off his shirt, then that would be how Steve always did it. There was always a valid reason for it as well, until… Until, Danny realized, Steve had apparently deemed it necessary to remove his shirt when Danny and only Danny was around. The most obvious answer was often the right one, and this one jumped out at him. Steve was doing it on purpose. 

After Steve had somehow torn a sleeve and did something to look like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons during a foot chase, he’d waited until everyone else had left the scene, then changed before getting into the car; Danny had been too busy lamenting the fact Steve kept a spare set of clothes in the trunk of _his_ car to catch that one at the time. Yesterday morning when Danny had swung by to pick him up, Steve had come to the door of his house, shirt in hand instead of on his back. And just now, Danny couldn’t say he was convinced that cup of coffee hadn’t been strategically placed at the very edge of the desk like it was part of some mini Rube Goldberg machine, where someone as smooth as Steve might more convincingly spill it on himself with a flick of the hand. Hell, he couldn’t even be sure the coffee had been all that hot.

“Son of a bitch,” Danny muttered. 

He glared over at Steve’s office just in time to get an eyeful of Steve’s ass in the air as he bent in a wholly unnatural way to tie his bootlaces. Seriously, Danny had never witnessed the guy do anything but sit like a normal person for that particular task. Danny gazed upon the scenery for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. Now he knew Steve was messing with his head for some reason, and all it did was add more images into his pervy repertoire. Steve hulaing or not, it didn’t matter so much as long as he was flashing skin. 

“Hey, where’d you go? We were in the middle of discussing Alapai’s potential involvement in the cartel,” Steve said.

Danny sighed and opened his eyes. Steve stared back at him with one of his most endearing quizzical faces, the picture of innocent ignorance. _Maybe_ , Danny thought, _maybe I’m just losing my mind._ He gave Steve a watery smile rather than replying.

“You okay, Danny? You look off.”

“Sudden onset migraine,” Danny lied. He rubbed at his temples and squinted a little, certain his acting would win him no awards.

“Take the afternoon, man,” Steve said, apparently convinced. “We’ve got it all under control and you look like you could use the rest.”

Steve still sounded like he hadn’t taken off all of his clothes a few minutes ago, or that doing so was usual and customary. Which, yeah, but no. Danny couldn’t figure it. His partner was winding him up, had to be. The reason why eluded him. He’d obviously been far too preoccupied with his rampant hula fantasies to pay attention to _something_.

“Chin and Kono will be back soon. Go, all right? Feel better.”

“Thanks.” 

Danny was convinced. Steve was a power-through-it kind of guy, not a go-home-and-rest one, so something was going on. He only hoped he figured it out before he went off his rocker. He gathered up his keys and got the heck out, painfully aware that lately all he seemed to do was run away.

*~*~*~*

He came awake, aching, sweaty and hard as a rock, which was the same way he’d gone to sleep. The lingering memory of his dream was salt on his tongue, desperation at the back of his throat. Danny thrashed his way out from the twisted sheet covering half his torso and legs, hands fumbling inside his boxers for his cock. With the image of Steve dancing in the golden light of sunset still sharp in his mind, it took him all of four good twist and pulls to come long and hard all over his hand and low on his stomach. He flipped onto his side, panting slightly not so much from exertion but the aftereffects of orgasm, buried his face in the pillow and groaned. 

Danny was fully aware it was still broad daylight out, his shutters were wide open and his neighbor lady had already mentioned several things to him which led him to believe she got a thrill out of watching him (he wasn’t in a position to judge, anymore) in his daily routines, but those were the least of his problems. He hoped it was as good for her as it was for him, as he drifted back into a doze.

The next time he woke up it was dark and though he wasn’t aroused, he still tasted that desperation. The fake migraine had turned into wheel-spinning restlessness, as he tried to figure out what angle Steve was working from with all of the recent stripteases. Danny had traded that for a nap, and now he felt grimy and uncomfortable. He scratched his belly, shot a look toward Mrs. Randall’s apartment and then got up and stretched. He headed for the shower to rinse off, still focused on Steve to the extent he stroked himself lazily while he soaped up, wondered if Steve had any idea what he did to Danny.

“You’re an idiot,” Danny said.

Of course Steve did. Steve wouldn’t have messed with him he if he didn’t have a clue something was up.

Danny brushed his teeth, ran his hands through his hair and tossed on some shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops. It was beyond time that he do what he should have done right away – ask Steve the question. Now, though, it wasn’t about hula so much as it was about him and his issues, and those had to be talked about as well. His stomach was in knots all the way over to Steve’s, probably a good thing he hadn’t eaten since noon. He couldn’t say how this was going to go, didn’t understand Steve’s motivations yet, but he had to brace himself for the worst. If he’d learned anything over the years, it was that expecting a bad outcome was prudent; it had the side effect of making a good outcome seem all the sweeter.

Steve’s house was mostly dark, though Danny saw dim light filtering through from the kitchen area. He let himself in, disarmed the alarm and felt a sense of déjà vu as he walked through the house. The kitchen, too, was dark. He frowned. It was the lanai and the beachfront which held the lights, bona fide torches, actually, he noted as he saw a flickering flame. He glanced backwards, as if he could see the street through the house walls. It wasn’t hula night. He hadn’t seen any cars. There wasn’t music playing. He righted his attention back through the kitchen window, took a step closer. 

It wasn’t hula night, but Steve was out there. He was wearing what Danny had been envisioning for weeks, only better. The white strips of the loincloth barely covered him front and back, contrasting sharply with the tanned hue of his skin made even darker by the flickering flames and blue-tinted moonlight. His wrists, ankles, neck and forehead were all circled in green leaves, and Steve moved with singular determination. 

Danny had no idea if hula could be freeform, didn’t think so, and stood there confused for a little bit. Steve moved with far less of the aggressive maneuvers that Danny had come to expect, but was no less intricate in whatever story he was dancing. It was strange and beautiful. It made him forget his resolve to address it with Steve, and he might have run once again if his partner didn’t turn abruptly to face the house. Steve seemed to stare right at him, still dancing. With one particular motion, Danny started to get it. Steve held up his arms in front of him, like he was holding a weapon, but it didn’t last. One hand dropped, then circled up. He mimicked picking something up, held up his hand and stepped forward. 

Steve was dancing their first meeting, and he knew Danny was in there. 

He couldn’t walk away now. Heart beating a hair too fast, Danny headed for the lanai on shaky legs. Steve _knew_ Danny had seen him and his hula troupe, had anticipated he would show up tonight. He should have known that himself, but it turned out there were vast depths to Steve he hadn’t expected. Nervous, he observed as Steve’s dance continued despite his presence. He picked out enough of the recreated motions to know this was their story. Steve thought they had a story. 

Up close, Danny could see a faint sheen on Steve’s skin and the torchlight reflected in his eyes. He lost all interest in interpreting the dance, didn’t need it to decipher the story he’d lived. Was living. Steve was lithe, gestures more supple than they’d been in a group. He couldn’t help the arousal, his body’s physical reaction, or the smug feeling he got when Steve faltered when he saw it. It was all or nothing, and he’d gone with nothing far too often in the past few years. He held his ground as Steve pressed closer and closer, until they were a couple of feet apart. Breathless, Steve ended the dance suddenly, in what seemed to Danny to be an incomplete thought.

“You knew I knew about this,” Danny said, gesturing to Steve’s attire, which did not disguise his hard-on any better than Danny’s jeans shorts did. His eyes lingered. “How?”

“The beer,” Steve said, his voice rough. “You left it that first night.”

That had been a bit of a giveaway, Danny had to acknowledge. He tipped his head to the side, chewed on the inside of his cheek. He nodded.

“You didn’t say anything, though. I thought maybe you were going to, ah…”

“Be an asshole?” Danny recalled the awkward conversation in the car, Steve’s tension then now making more sense. He took a small step. “It was unexpected. I wanted to know more, before I asked you about it. It seemed personal. I wouldn’t cut you down for that.”

“It is.” Steve mirrored Danny’s small step. “It’s very personal.”

“That why you tried to rattle my cage this week?” Danny asked. “You were trying to get me to ‘fess up. Took guts, if you thought I was going to be a dick about it.”

Steve studied him carefully, silently. He took off the wreath of greens from his head and tossed it to the side, leaving his hair rumpled and, frankly, adorable. He nodded, then shook his head and a glimmer of uncertainty tainted his features. 

“But you didn’t,” Steve said. He paused for a moment. “Did you know hula is a dance that tells a story, Danny?” 

“I didn’t before. I do now.” Danny swallowed. He’d been a dolt about a lot of things, but he wasn’t misreading this. He couldn’t be. “I couldn’t help but notice you stopped this one in a spot that seems unresolved to me.”

“Yeah.”

Oh, yes. Danny had always known Steve was attractive. What he hadn’t known was that there was more to it, for him. He had no answers regarding how Steve came to be skilled in the art of hula, but that in and of itself didn’t matter now. What mattered was that he didn’t just want Steve’s body. He hadn’t allowed himself the thought of that, let alone more, but now he wanted everything and he might just be able to have it. He might get the answer to the hula question and many, many other things.

“I was hoping we could finish it together,” Steve said softly, almost more of a query than a statement. He took a step.

Danny closed the gap, aware all of a sudden how tall Steve was. The thought was fleeting, as they created their own dance, hands reaching, touching. Steve’s skin was every bit as soft as he’d imagined, and the muscle below just as hard. Steve curved toward him, hands roaming down his back and grabbing him solidly by the ass. Their lips met, a fair amount of teeth clashing and wrong angles for a second or two, but he couldn’t withhold the moan as they finally got it right. Steve kissed him like he was the whole world, when Danny now understood the reverse to be true.

He dropped his own hands to Steve’s waist as they kissed hungrily, tugged at the loincloth to get it off, off, it had to come off. There was no reason to go slow. He knew what he wanted now, and that he could have it. Growling unhappily when he couldn’t get a few strips of fabric to budge, he gave it up and simply ran his fingers along Steve’s length, pleased when Steve gasped into his mouth.

“Danny. Yes.”

He slid one hand under the back flap, against Steve’s firm ass. Danny ran his finger along the line of the cloth there while he caressed Steve’s length with gentle strokes. He pulled back from the kiss when he felt his own jeans being tugged down. 

“God, you’re perfect,” Steve whispered, looking down at Danny’s cock. 

And for that generous lie, Danny licked Steve’s right nipple as he pressed his fingers into the crease of the loincloth and increased the speed of his strokes. Steve gave a hoarse cry as he came, swift and sudden. It took Danny by surprise, but he loved it. He loved that that was all it took. He grinned at the dopey look on Steve’s face, kissed him through the orgasm and the hazy tremors that followed, until Steve was the one to pull away.

Steve dropped to his knees, glancing up at Danny as if asking permission. Danny had barely nodded, a brief thought that it might get uncomfortable for Steve when Steve’s warm mouth took him in. He dug his fingers into Steve’s shoulders, hips moving naturally, fucking into Steve’s mouth. Steve created the barest amount of suction, his tongue deft, the slight scrape of teeth dangerous, exciting. Already, he felt the electric build of his own orgasm. His hands scrabbled against Steve’s skin, all the warning either of them got before he came. Danny’s legs gave out slightly, but Steve caught him and eased them both down until they lay side by side, touching at the shoulder, arms. 

“That was … fast.” Danny felt the need to apologize for that as soon as he had the capacity for speech. “I can do better.”

“So can I,” Steve said, with a laugh that filled Danny’s heart. 

Danny shifted onto one elbow and looked at Steve’s face, all flickering shadows in the torchlight. He felt lazy, satisfied and _stupid_ for suppressing the physical for so long when it led to something hopeful. Steve was arguably one of the most aggravating people he knew (and he knew that was a mutual feeling), but he wanted to spend a lifetime getting to know all of his hidden depths, the things that made the aggravations seem like endearing traits now. 

“We’ll just have to practice telling this story’s ending until we get it right,” Danny said. “Right?”

Steve traced a finger down the side of Danny’s face, tilted his head just so, and pulled him down for a kiss yes.


End file.
